How to prepare One (1) Litre Oral Rehydration Solution [ORS] using Salt, Sugar and Water at Home

Place 6 level teaspoons of sugar and
a half level teaspoon of salt
into one litre of clean drinking water (or boiled water and then cooled)
 - 1 litre = 5 cupfuls (each cup about 200 ml.)

Feed with a spoon

Be very careful to mix the correct amounts, as too much sugar can make the diarrhoea worse, and too much salt can be extremely harmful to the child. If the mixture is made a little too diluted no harm can be done and there is very little loss of effectiveness.

Encourage the child to drink as much as possible.

A child under the age of two needs at least a quarter to a half of a large cup of the ORS drink after each watery stool.

A child aged two or older needs at least a half to a whole large cup of the ORS drink after each watery stool.

Diarrhoea usually stops in three or four days. The real danger is the loss of liquid and nutrients from the child's body, which can cause dehydration and malnutrition.

Children are more likely than adults to die from diarrhoea because they become dehydrated more quickly. Diarrhoea is also a major cause of child malnutrition.

2.2 million people in developing countries, most of them children, die every year from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation, poor hygiene and overcrowding. 90% are children under 5, mostly in developing countries. Undernutrition is the underlying cause of a substantial proportion of all child deaths. Infants who are fed only breastmilk during the first 6 months seldom get diarrhoea. At six months, in addition to breastmilk, complementary foods with increased feeding frequency and changes in food consistency, quantity, and diversity as the child ages.

Thousands of deaths could be averted through a combined prevention and treatment strategy — interventions such as improved mother and child nutrition, optimal breastfeeding practices; Oral Rehydration Therapy [ORT]; new low-osmolarity formulations of ORS; incorporating rotavirus vaccines; zinc supplementation during diarrhoea episodes; immunizing all children against measles; appropriate drug therapy; increased access to safe clean water and sanitation facilities and improved personal and domestic hygiene, including keeping food and water clean and washing hands before touching food.

Families and communities are working together, with support from governments, states, corporations and non-governmental organizations, to prevent the conditions that cause diarrhoea and thereby rapidly reducing child mortality.

Oral rehydration therapy and continued feeding is a life-saving treatment, which only 39 per cent of children with diarrhoea in developing countries receive. Limited data show little progress since 2000.
 

Zinc tablets are still largely unavailable in most developing countries, although their effectiveness in reducing the severity and duration of diarrhoea episodes is well known.
 

Safe water, adequate sanitation and proper hygiene are too often forgotten foundations of good health. Handwashing with soap alone could potentially reduce the number of diarrhoea cases by over 40 per cent.
 

Breastfeeding is critical to both the prevention and treatment of diarrhoea. Infants who are exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life and continue to be breastfed until two years of age and beyond develop fewer infections and have less severe illnesses, including diarrhoea.
 

The Global Health Media Project collaborated with award-winning animator Yoni Goodman to produce The Story of Cholera.

The Story of Cholera is an engaging, educational animation in which a young boy helps a health worker save his father and then guides his village in preventing cholera from spreading. By making the invisible cholera germs visible, this simple animated narrative brings to life the teaching points of cholera prevention.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports an estimated 3–5 million cholera cases annually, resulting in 100,000–120,000 deaths worldwide. Cholera can kill quickly and, if not contained, will spread like wildfire. Yet, it is preventable and readily treatable.

Public education is an effective means to help contain epidemics. But at-risk populations are often poorly informed as to how cholera is spread and how to prevent transmission.

Download English Video for Mobile Phones 30mb   -   Flashcards 2 mb
Download Haitian Creole Video for Mobile Phones 23.8 mb   -   Flashcards 2.1 mb
Download Haitian Creole, Andeyo Video for Mobile Phones 23.8 mb

Can One Pill Tame the Illness
No One Wants to Talk About?

17 August, 2009 - It is hard to grasp the impact diarrhea has on people's lives across Africa and Asia. The disease kills more children than either malaria or AIDS, stunts growth, and forces millions — adults and children alike — to spend weeks at a time off work or school, which hits both a country's economy and its citizens' chances of a better future.

Taming a Devastating Illness with a Simple Pill  See pictures of of how zinc is saving lives in Mali.
Zinc tablets help African communities fight diarrhea, a scourge that claims the lives of an astonishing 1.6 million children every year

Healing: The Unexpected Properties of Zinc

Scaling up oral rehydration salts and zinc for the treatment of diarrhoea

Scaling up the provision of zinc and ORS could rapidly reduce child mortality for four reasons.

Firstly, although it has been almost eight years since the World Health Organization recommended combination treatment with zinc and ORS, few countries have implemented basic interventions to increase the currently low use of adjunctive zinc. Such interventions would include marketing zinc to caregivers and distributing it in large volumes through both public and private facilities. Even limited additional investment in such interventions could have a large effect.

Secondly, children with diarrhoea can be reached and given appropriate treatment easily. Most children currently obtain some form of treatment for diarrhoea, but most of them receive inappropriate treatments such as antibiotics and antidiarrhoeal agents. Merely switching the treatments children receive, which is less challenging than trying to change caregivers' treatment seeking behaviour, could therefore drive substantial increases in ORS and zinc coverage.

Thirdly, and in contrast to treatments for malaria or pneumonia, effective treatment of diarrhoea does not need to be carefully targeted to selected children in whom a definitive diagnosis is made. A strategy of "flooding the market" with ORS and zinc­ distributing them through all outlets where caregivers seek treatment ­could be pursued safely, with no threat of drug resistance, for example.

Lastly, a full course of zinc and ORS treatment costs less than $0.50 (£0.3; €0.38), and the marketing, training, and distribution necessary to drive product uptake could also be implemented at comparatively modest cost. Moreover, public funding for procurement of zinc and ORS in many countries would be further moderated by the fact that most treatment for diarrhoea is delivered through the private sector and paid for out of pocket. >>  more

TIME Europe
 16 October 2006
pp40-47

Diarrhea kills more young children around the world than malaria, AIDS and TB combined. Yet a simple and inexpensive treatment can prevent many of those deaths. Why isn't it more widely used?

A Simple Solution
In the West, it's an inconvenience, but, in the developing world, it can be a death sentence. It kills millions of children every year, yet the treatment is a simple mixture of salt, sugar and water. So why isn't more being done to fight diarrhea?

Surviving Diarrhea
Most deaths from diarrhea can be prevented by giving the victim oral rehydration. A guide to how it works

Authors: Gerlin, Andrea, Number of pages: 8, Publication date: 2006, Languages: English

Overview

In this article, published in Time Magazine in October 2006, the author Andrea Gerlin, investigates the reasons why diarrhoea still kills 1.9 million children every year, and why Oral Rehydration Solution is not more widely used throughout the world.

Dehydration

Prevent and Treat | Treatment Plans
Dehydration caused by diarrhoea is one of the biggest single killers of children in the modern world and diarrhoea itself is one of the major causes of nutritional loss and poor growth.  [more]

Rehydration

"The discovery that sodium transport and glucose transport are coupled in the small intestine so that glucose accelerates absorption of solute and water (is) potentially the most important medical advance this century."  The Lancet - British Scientific Journal - 5th August, 1978 [more]

Oral Rehydration Solutions

Home Made | Packaged
Most often, diarrhoea kills a child by dehydration, which means that too much liquid has been drained out of the child's body. To replace the liquid being lost it is essential to give the child extra drinks as soon as diarrhoea starts.

Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT) is the cheap, simple and effective way to treat dehydration caused by diarrhoea. [more]

Breastfeeding

Facts | Frequently Asked Questions | HIV
During the first 6 months of life, infants should be exclusively breastfed. This means that the healthy baby should receive breastmilk and no other fluids, such as water, teas, juice, cereal drinks, animal milk or formula.

Exclusively breastfed babies are much less likely to get diarrhoea or to die from it than are babies who are not breastfed or are partially breastfed. [more]

Low-Osmolarity ORS

Q & A | Technical FAQs
Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS) has been the cornerstone of diarrheal disease control since 1970s. Recently, the ORS formulation was revised by reducing the sodium and glucose content. This new, low-osmolarity ORS, improves the efficacy of ORS, reduces the need for unscheduled intravenous infusions, lowers stool volume, and causes less vomiting compared with standard ORS. [more]

Zinc Supplementation

ORS and Zinc: Treatment of diarrhoea is now more effective

Recent studies suggest that a 10- to 14-day therapy of zinc treatment can considerably reduce the duration and severity of diarrhoeal episodes, decrease stool output, and lessen the need for hospitalization. Zinc may also prevent future diarrhoea episodes for up to three months. [more]

Rotavirus Disease & Vaccines

Key Facts | Promise and Potential
Worldwide, almost every child will have at least one rotavirus infection before he or she is five years old. The virus is so contagious and resilient that providing clean water and promoting proper hygiene do not significantly reduce incidence, which is nearly the same in industrialized and developing countries. Additionally, because rotavirus usually causes profuse vomiting, ORS/ORT is difficult to administer. [more]

Hygiene, Hand-washing and Clean Water

Providing clean water for drinking and food preparation, teaching children and adults to wash their hands properly are some of the most important things governments and families can do to protect health. These proven interventions have already made a world of difference for millions and millions of people. [more]